my ESPEE MODELERS ARCHIVE

California's Railroad to the U.S. 1861 - 1996

Southern Pacific 86' Box cars

According to D. Scott Chatfield's article in the RMJ list below, there were 5 builders of 86ft box cars;

Bob Allessi has informed me that Whitehead and Kales built #615200, the only one they ever built; and it was one of the first 3 hycubes built for any railroad.

• Despatch Shops
• Greenville
• Paccar
• Pullman Standard
• Thrall

SP and SSW owned cars from five: Whitehead & Kales, Paccar, Pullman, Thrall and Greenville.

See the SP Freight Car Spec. Sheet No.17 for earlier numbers and details.

From the Spec. Sheet, magazine articles and Lee Gautreaux's website; I have tried to make an educated guess as to the number series and builder...
now with more and corrected information supplied by Bob Allessi.

# series class details SP 615200 ? built by Whitehead & Kales SP 615201-615269 B-70-19 built by Paccar 1964 SP 615270-615272 B-70-39 built by Thrall 1967 SP 615500-615549 B-70-21 built by Thrall 1964 SP 616500-616506 B-100-19 built by GSC 1968 SP 616507-616521 B-100-22 built by GSC 1969 SP 616522-616531 B-100-24 built by GSC 1969 SP 616532-616553 B-70-54 built by GSC 1970 SP 616554-616561 B-70-55 built by GSC 1970 SSW 65000-65030* B-70-19 built by Paccar 1964 SSW 65031-65040 B-70-21 built by Thrall 1964 SSW 65041-65090 B-100-16 built by Pullman Standard, Lot 9275A SSW 65091-65103 B-100-26 built by GSC 1970 SSW 65200-65223 B-70-19R built by Paccar 1964, rebuilt 1979-80 * SP reckon they had 31 of these, other texts say only 30 i.e. 65001-65030

Modeling choices at the moment are:

• For N Scale:
  • Arnold - Greenville (stand-in)
  • Atlas/Concor - Thrall
  • Walthers - Pullman 4-door and 8-door

• For HO Scale:
  • Athearn - Greenville 4-door
  • Athearn - Thrall 8-door smoothside
  • Walthers - Pullman 4-door and 8-door

• For O Scale:
  • ?

References:

• Railmodel Journal January 1994 pages 44-45 - Athearn kit mechanical upgrade by D. Scott Chatfield.
• Railmodel Journal January 1994 pages 32-39 - general history and photos of 86' box cars, includes SP info.
• Railmodel Journal August 1999 pages 36-42 - Pullman Standard 86ft box car article, including SP info by D. Scott Chatfield.
• Railmodel Journal February 2000 page 34 - Con-Cor N Scale SSW 4-door kit upgrade by Bernard Kempinski.
• Railmodel Journal September 2000 pages 36-39 - SP/SSW HO Scale Athearn 8-door kit conversion to exterior-post box car, by Mike Budde.